Discipleship Network Forum

When our family moved from Florida to North Carolina, we realized after a few days that our blue Parakeet was being awfully quiet. Tweety, as we called him, had always been a joyful chirper while we lived in Florida—but now it seemed he had lost his song. For a whole month, Tweety’s silence continued, to the point that we wondered if he would ever be the same again.

I missed the cheery atmosphere that Tweety had previously provided, something I had taken for granted and not appreciated like I should have. It appeared that the trauma of moving 10 hours away and adjusting to a new climate was more than he could bear. When days past without a song from Tweety, I became concerned that he might even die from the strain of our move.

Then, as suddenly as it had disappeared, Tweety’s song returned. Once again, his happy chirping filled our kitchen and lifted our spirits.

Tweety’s resilience is a lesson for us all. Resilience is defined in Webster’s Dictionary as “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.”

Birds aren’t the only creatures that can lose their song—people can too! In fact, I’ve experienced this myself numerous times over the years. Sometimes, like Tweety, I’ve experienced traumatic events that temporarily robbed me of my joy and my sense of purpose. At other times, my song disappeared amid sheer boredom or fatigue. I just didn’t feel like singing anymore, or even living, for that matter.

During these times when I lost my song, it seemed as if it might be gone forever. Life is pretty dreary when you’ve lost your vision, and that happens to me from time to time.

Thankfully, God has always restored my lost song in time. Sometimes He does this instantaneously, but at other times I’ve had to wait for weeks or even months.

During my “lost song” episodes, I’ve had a surprising epiphany: Often when my song returns, it comes in the form of an affirmation of some dream or vision that God had already put on my heart years before. But at other times, I’ve been blessed by unexpectedly receiving a “new song”—some fresh insight into the Lord’s future plans for my life (Psalm 40:1-3, Jeremiah 29:11).

If you’ve presently lost your song, as has happened to Tweety and me, recognize that you aren’t alone. This is a universal human experience, and if you’re a visionary, creative type like me, you’re likely to get hit the hardest.

Time is on your side in the restoration process. Make sure to surround yourself with loving friends who can help you regain your equilibrium and perspective. And a brisk walk or trip to the gym might help you get rid of the cobwebs too.

Don’t believe the lie that your joy will never return. Instead, turn your heart fully to the Lord. Spend time in His Word, where you’ll see how some of the Bible’s greatest heroes lost, and then recovered, their vision and their song.

Some of your most valuable lessons will be discovered in the midst of life’s storms. He is in the restoration business, and He knows exactly what you need to get your song back.

Can’t you hear the music begin to play in the distance? When you hear heaven’s irresistible serenade again, you can’t help but sing. You might even want to put on your dancing shoes.

Although I’m grateful for all the good accomplished through the Recovery Movement over the years, I get perturbed by its tendency to assign people to long-term victimhood. The philosophy seems to be, “Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic,” even if God has transformed your life and you’ve been sober for decades.

And things aren’t much better if you attend a recovery group for grief, divorce, overeating, codependency, or some other trauma in your life. It’s as if they hand out scarlet letters at the door, reminding you of your past.

When a friend recently attended a divorce recovery group, the leader told him that for every year of marriage, it generally takes several years to recover after a divorce. This is nonsensical, of course. My friend had been married for more than 30 years, so it would take him at least 60 years to recover based on the group leader’s formula. The leader’s prognosis was pretty disheartening to say the least.

And then the divorce group leader made another misguided statement: “There is absolutely nothing you can do to speed up your recovery. You just have to endure the pain until it subsides.”

Okay, I know what he means. You can’t take shortcuts. For every trauma in life, there will be some pain that simply must be endured. But does that mean there’s nothing we can do to speed the recovery? That’s both ludicrous and unscriptural.

We’ve all met people who are so full of unforgiveness and bitterness after a trauma like divorce that they’re prolonging their recovery. In fact, I’ve known people who will never recover in this life, because they won’t let go of their offense. Instead of the initial wound killing such people, their life is undermined by the infection they allowed to set in.

Just as we can do things to hinder our recovery, I believe we can position ourselves for faster and more complete healing.

Isaiah 58:8 describes this in a context of fasting, seeking God, repenting of wickedness, and serving the poor: “Then your light shall break forth like the morning, your healing shall spring forth speedily.” Isn’t that good news? Yes, healing is a process that may take some time. But when you take the right steps, “your healing shall spring forth speedily.”

Years ago, the Lord showed me that discipleship is basically a matter of 5 Connections: God, People, Truth, Character, and Service. Remarkably, these same five components can speed along our emotional healing and recovery from difficult situations:

Connection with GOD: In His presence is healing balm and fullness of joy (Psalm 16:11). That’s the ultimate key to any kind of positive transformation we seek (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Connection with PEOPLE: Even though most emotional traumas are caused by other people, it’s also likely that God will use our relationships with people as an important component of our recovery. It’s an indisputable fact of life that positive, truth-speaking, encouraging people can help to speed our recovery, while negative, cynical people will just prolong our pain and foster more toxicity.

Connection with TRUTH: When we’ve gone through a life-altering situation, we must be careful to remain grounded in the truth of God’s Word rather than our transitory and misleading feelings. Satan uses our emotional traumas as opportunities to speak his lies, so it becomes more important than ever to cling to the truth about who God is and how much He loves us.

Connection with CHARACTER: Too often, people who are hurting try to self-medicate their pain through alcohol, drugs, pornography, gambling, toxic relationships, or other destructive activities. Such things are a great way to go from the frying pan into the fire. Instead, we should use any emotional trauma as a time for God to expose and heal any wicked or hurtful areas of our heart (Psalm 139:24). We also must carefully monitor our lives and take preventative action if we see some kind of bad fruit developing.

Connection with SERVICE: One of the greatest ways for us to receive healing is to reach out to heal the pain of others. Like the man who had a shriveled hand in Mark 3:1-5, our disability can be healed when we stretch out our hand in obedience to the Lord.

Those of us from a charismatic or Pentecostal background might prefer to think that all emotional healing should come from a supernatural, instantaneous touch from God. Just come to the altar for prayer, and everything will be alright.

While that kind of immediate remedy is surely possible, the Lord often prefers to take us through the process of healing. Why? Probably because the 5 connections in the healing process are the very same connections we need to become more like Christ. Just as sanctification and discipleship aren’t instantaneous propositions, emotional healing may take more than a single prayer.

If you’ve been struggling to break free from some kind of traumatic experience or relationship, don’t despair. God has a plan for your recovery—and it doesn’t have to take as long as you’ve thought.

Make a decision today to forgive and release those who have wronged you. Then engage in the 5 connections in the Lord’s unfailing process of recovery and transformation.